Sustainability

Separating gases is hard but might get easier, researchers find

Anonymous — Thu, 27 Jun 2024 18:11:05 +0000

Separating gases is hard but might get easier, researchers find Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 06/27/2024 - 12:11

Rachel Sauer

In newly published study, CU �鶹ӰԺ chemist Wei Zhang details a new porous material that is less expensive and more sustainable

For a broad range of industries, separating gases is an important part of both process and product—from separating nitrogen and oxygen from air for medical purposes to separating carbon dioxide from other gases in the process of carbon capture or removing impurities from natural gas.

Separating gases, however, can be both energy-intensive and expensive. “For example, when separating oxygen and nitrogen, you need to cool the air to very low temperatures until they liquefy. Then, by slowly increasing the temperature, the gases will evaporate at different points, allowing one to become a gas again and separate out,” explains Wei Zhang, a �鶹ӰԺ professor of chemistry and chair of the Department of Chemistry.

“It’s very energy intensive and costly.”

Wei Zhang, a CU �鶹ӰԺ professor of chemistry, developed a porous material that can accommodate and separate many different gases and is made from common, readily available materials.

Much gas separation relies on porous materials through which gases pass and are separated. This, too, has long presented a problem, because these porous materials generally are specific to the types of gases being separated. Try sending any other types of gas through them, and they don’t work.

However, in research published today in the journal Science, Zhang and his co-researchers detail a new type of porous material that can accommodate and separate many different gases and is made from common, readily available materials. Further, it combines rigidity and flexibility in a way that allows size-based gas separation to happen at a greatly decreased energy cost.

“We are trying to make technology better,” Zhang says, “and improve it in a way that’s scalable and sustainable.”

Adding flexibility

For a long time, the porous materials used in gas separation have been rigid and affinity-based—specific to the types of gases being separated. The rigidity allows the pores to be well-defined and helps direct the gases in separating, but also limits the number of gases that can pass through because of varying molecule sizes.

For several years, Zhang and his research group worked to develop a porous material that introduces an element of flexibility to a linking node in otherwise rigid porous material. That flexibility allows the molecular linkers to oscillate, or move back and forth at a regular speed, changing the accessible pore size in the material and allowing it to be adapted to multiple gases.

“We found that at room temperature, the pore is relatively the largest and the flexible linker barely moves, so most gases can get in,” Zhang says. “When we increase the temperature from room temperature to about 50 degrees (Celsius), oscillation of the linker becomes larger, causing effective pore size to shrink, so larger gases can’t get in. If we keep increasing the temperature, more gases are turned away due to increased oscillation and further reduced pore size. Finally, at 100 degrees, only the smallest gas, hydrogen, can pass through.”

The material that Zhang and his colleagues developed is made of small organic molecules and is most analogous to zeolite, a family of porous, crystalline materials mostly composed of silicon, aluminum and oxygen. “It’s a porous material that has a lot of highly ordered pores,” he says. “You can picture it like a honeycomb. The bulk of it is solid organic material with these regular-sized pores that line up and form channels.”

The researchers used a fairly new type of dynamic covalent chemistry that focuses on the boron-oxygen bond. Using a boron atom with four oxygen atoms around it, they took advantage of the reversibility of the bond between the boron and oxygen, which can break and reform again and again, thus enabling self-correcting, error-proof behavior and leading to the formation of structurally ordered frameworks.

“We wanted to build something with tunability, with responsiveness, with adaptability, and we thought the boron-oxygen bond could be a good component to integrate into the framework we were developing, because of its reversibility and flexibility,” Zhang says.

Graphs charting pore size, gas molecule size and gas uptake.

Sustainable solutions

Developing this new porous material did take time, Zhang says: “Making the material is easy and simple. The difficulty was at the very beginning, when we first obtained the material and needed to understand or elucidate its structure—how the bonds form, how angles form within this material, is it two-dimensional or three-dimensional. We had some challenges because the data looked promising; we just didn’t know how to explain it. It showed certain peaks (x-ray diffraction), but we could not immediately figure out what kind of structure those peaks corresponded to."

So, he and his research colleagues took a step back, which can be an important but little-discussed part of the scientific process. They focused on the small-molecule model system containing the same reactive sites as those in their material to understand how molecular building blocks packed in a solid state, and that helped explain the data.

Zhang adds that he and his co-researchers considered scalability in developing this material, since its potential industrial uses would require large amounts, “and we believe this method is highly scalable. The building blocks are commercially available and not expensive, so it could be adopted by industry when the time is right.”

They have applied for a patent on the material and are continuing the research with other building-block materials to learn the substrate scope of this approach. Zhang also says he sees potential to partner with engineering researchers to integrate the material into membrane-based applications.

“Membrane separations generally require much less energy, so in the long term they could be more sustainable solutions,” Zhang says. “Our goal is to improve technology to meet industry needs in sustainable ways.”

Researchers Yiming Hu, Bratin Sengupta, Hai Long, Lacey J. Wayment, Richard Ciora, Yinghua Jin, Jingyi Wu, Zepeng Lei, Kaleb Friedman, Hongxuan Chen and Miao Yu also contributed to this study.

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In newly published study, CU �鶹ӰԺ chemist Wei Zhang details a new porous material that is less expensive and more sustainable.

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CU �鶹ӰԺ scientist wins Brown Investigator Award

Anonymous — Wed, 29 May 2024 17:48:04 +0000

CU �鶹ӰԺ scientist wins Brown Investigator Award Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/29/2024 - 11:48

Rachel Sauer

Chemistry Professor Gordana Dukovic will pursue research to develop new insights into solar chemistry

�鶹ӰԺ scientist Gordana Dukovic has been named a 2024 Brown Investigator Award winner, a recognition that will support her research to develop new insights into solar chemistry.

Dukovic, a professor of chemistry and fellow in the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, is one of eight award recipients from universities across the United States who conduct basic research in chemistry or physics. Each winner will receive up to $2 million distributed over five years.

The Brown Investigator Award is given by the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences at Caltech, which was founded "to support bold investigations with the potential for transformational discoveries that will ultimately benefit humanity,” according to founder Ross M. Brown. It supports mid-career physics and chemistry researchers in the United States who are pursuing new directions of inquiry.

Gordana Dukovic, a CU �鶹ӰԺ professor of chemistry, was named one of eight 2024 Brown Investigator Award winners Wednesday.

For Dukovic, that will mean broadening the work that she and the members of her interdisciplinary research group pursue in the field of nanoscience for solar energy harvesting.

“In this work, we often couple nanomaterials with biological catalysts, which are called enzymes,” Dukovic explains. “Nanomaterials can absorb sunlight and then give electrons generated by sunlight to the enzymes, which then do enzyme-catalyzed transformations that make new molecules.

“What we’re finding in our work is that the outcomes of these solar processes are very sensitive to the details of how the nanomaterials interact with enzymes, which are difficult to determine. We know that there are elements of chemical structure that are going to be extremely important for the function of these materials we’re making, but they’re very difficult to see. This award will allow us to adapt and use the tools of electron microscopy in new ways to transform our understanding of the structure of the materials we work with.”

‘This hasn’t been done before’

Because the Brown Investigator Award supports basic science, Dukovic emphasizes that her new area of research isn’t focused on making an existing device more efficient, but on learning how to control the outcomes of light-driven reactions.

“When we try to use sunlight to make new molecules, like fuels or other useful chemicals, there are a lot of other places where the solar energy can go, (including) unproductive pathways where it can go,” she says. “So, we want to understand what controls whether a pathway is going to productive or unproductive and how to enhance the productive pathways.”

Dukovic and her colleagues will explore the role of the structure of the materials that they’re making in determining these photochemical pathways and how they then we can make materials that have efficient photochemical pathways. Ultimately, she says, this may lead to new solar technologies.

“A lot of the chemical products that we use today, such as fuels or fertilizers or other common chemicals, they’re made in really energy-intensive, polluting ways,” Dukovic says. “We want to find ways to use sunlight to make the chemicals that our society uses more sustainable.”

In her lab, Dukovic and her colleagues make semiconductor nanocrystals, which are tiny, light-emitting particles like quantum dots. They then study what happens after these materials absorb sunlight. Sometimes they couple nanocrystals with catalysts like enzymes or other molecules and then study the movement of electrons through the resulting chemical transformations.

Dukovic’s research relies on electron microscopy, but with a unique approach that combines two main types of it: cryo-electron, which is good for studying biomaterials like cells and proteins, and materials electron microscopy “looking at what each technique can learn from the other field,” Dukovic explains. “How can we use these tools together to learn what we need to learn about the structure of materials?

“We’re using tools from the field that have not been used in this way before, so it’s more high-risk, and the (Brown Investigator Award) gives us more time and resources to figure it out, because this hasn’t been done before.”

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Chemistry Professor Gordana Dukovic will pursue research to develop new insights into solar chemistry.

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Chemist, classicist earn prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships

Anonymous — Thu, 04 May 2023 04:04:50 +0000

Chemist, classicist earn prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 05/03/2023 - 22:04

Gordana Dukovic and Elspeth Dusinberre win support to enlarge the frontiers of sustainable chemistry and knowledge of the ancient Phrygians, respectively

Two �鶹ӰԺ professors have won prestigious Guggenheim Fellowships, which support the recipients’ research and scholarly work and aim to help them “engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions.”

Gordana Dukovic, professor of chemistry, and Elspeth Dusinberre, professor of distinction of classics, are among 171 scholars and artists in the 2023 class of fellows announced last month by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Chosen from a rigorous application and peer-review process out of almost 2,500 applicants, “these successful applicants were appointed on the basis of prior achievement and exceptional promise,” the foundation said.

Top of the page: Ancient city of Gordion, in Phrygia. Above: Gordana Dukovic (PhD Columbia University 2006) is an expert in nanotechnology/materials, physical chemistry and renewable energy.

“Like Emerson, I believe that fullness in life comes from following our calling,” said Edward Hirsch, president of the Guggenheim Foundation and 1985 fellow in poetry. “The new class of fellows has followed their calling to enhance all of our lives, to provide greater human knowledge and deeper understanding. We’re lucky to look to them to bring us into the future.”

With support from the Guggenheim fellowship, Dusinberre plans to investigate the social structures, palaces and uses of power among the early Phrygians, who lived in what is now Turkey ca. 950-800 BCE. Meanwhile, Dukovic aims to use the fellowship support to develop new research directions in using nanomaterials for sustainable chemistry.

Seeking insights into the ancient Phrygian kingdom

Dusinberre explains the context of her work this way: Phrygia was the main powerhouse society of what is now Turkey in the years 900-600 BCE, but its social structures, palaces and expressions of power remain relatively poorly understood. She will focus on the enormous buildings and material culture of the elite quarter at Gordion, capital of Phrygia and seat of King Midas of the Golden Touch from Greek myth.

In 800 BCE, she explains, Gordion was consumed in a great conflagration apparently caused by an accident—an event that marked the end of the Early Phrygian period (ca. 950-800 BCE). Gordion's inhabitants buried the burned buildings under meters of clean clay and rebuilt the city at a higher level but on the same plan as before, sealing off and preserving the buildings and artifacts “in an almost Pompeii-like manner.”

Elspeth Dusinberre (PhD Michigan 1997) is interested in cultural interactions in Anatolia, particularly in the ways in which the Achaemenid Persian Empire (ca. 550-330 BCE) affected local social structures and in the give-and-take between Achaemenid and other cultures.

“The area was excavated between 1950 and 1973, but the results have hitherto been presented only very partially and in disparate publications,” Dusinberre writes. “My scholarship will interrogate how people lived at Gordion in 800 BCE, why they made the decisions they did, how they negotiated power, and how these local behaviors related to the other great societies of the eastern Mediterranean at the time. Complex choices and actions at the nexus of intertwined politics and religion make my project germane to modern humanistic studies as well as ancient.”

Dusinberre notes that Gordion’s archaeological import is indisputable, adding that all other first-millennium archaeological sites in this part of the world are dated and contextualized in relation to Gordion.

“My study will present datable archaeological material of the Early Phrygian period for the first time, helping other archaeologists throughout the eastern Mediterranean to date their own artifacts in relation to Gordion’s and understand their sites’ cultural developments within the context of Gordion’s,” she writes.

“This is particularly significant because we have no texts from Phrygia to help scholars understand this period: the archaeological material is our only source of evidence.”

Employing the fellowship and a sabbatical leave, Dusinberre plans to finish a book reporting the results of her work by the end of next year. Meanwhile, she notes, “it is tremendously exciting to be poised so as to bring this remarkable material to the public.”

Dusinberre holds a PhD in classical art and archaeology from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and she graduated summa cum laude with a degree in classical archaeology from Harvard University. She joined the CU �鶹ӰԺ faculty in 2000.

Researching ways to harness solar power to replace fossil fuels

Each kilowatt-hour (kWh) of solar that is generated will substantially reduce greenhouse gas emissions like CO₂, as well as other dangerous pollutants such as sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. Solar also reduces water consumption and withdrawal. (ENERGY.GOV)

Dukovic studies light-driven processes in nanoscale materials and describes herself as a passionate teacher and mentor of junior scientists. In addition to her faculty position, she serves as an associate director of the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute, where she is a fellow.

As Dukovic notes, “The overarching goal of my research is to replace fossil fuels by harnessing solar energy to drive useful and interesting chemical reactions with light.”

The potential of solar energy is staggering, she observes: “It would take just a little over an hour of solar energy that strikes the Earth to power the planet for a year, but this diffuse and spread-out energy must first be converted into usable forms like electricity and fuels.”

Making this conversion efficient and cost-effective is a clear path toward a sustainable and climate-friendly future. One method is using sunlight to make new chemical bonds that store solar energy, so that it can be used on demand, Dukovic notes. “To do this, we need materials that absorb light optimally and catalysts that speed up the making of new bonds.”

Dukovic’s research lab seeks to contribute to a sustainable future by using sunlight to drive important chemical reactions. She studies structural, electronic and excited state properties of semiconductor nanomaterials to elucidate the processes that occur immediately after absorption of light.

Dukovic also couples nanomaterials with catalysts such as enzymes to drive useful and complex reactions with sunlight. She has received the NSF CAREER Award and was named a Sloan Research Fellow, Cottrell Scholar, Beckman Young Investigator and finalist for the Blavatnik National Award for Young Scientists.

Dukovic holds a PhD in physical chemistry, with distinction, from Columbia University and earned a BA in chemistry, graduating summa cum laude and as valedictorian from Douglass College at Rutgers University. She joined the CU �鶹ӰԺ faculty in 2009.

Gordana Dukovic and Elspeth Dusinberre win support to enlarge the frontiers of sustainable chemistry and knowledge of the ancient Phrygians, respectively.

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Students model their own green fashions on the sides of RTD buses

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Apr 2023 19:29:28 +0000

Students model their own green fashions on the sides of RTD buses Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/18/2023 - 13:29

Orla McGrath

Climate-communication class assignment was to ‘visually communicate sustainable fashion,’ and the effort got more response than anticipated

Local buses have been sporting images of students modeling clothing fashioned from recycled material, thrifted material and even plastic bags, along with the message: “Keep the Earth Clean: Dress Green.”

This is the visible result of a course taught by Beth Osnes and Max Boykoff, professors of environmental studies at CU �鶹ӰԺ, who created a “Green Suits your Fashion” program in their Spring 2021 Creative Climate Communications class. Students’ assignment: to visually communicate sustainable fashion to their circles of influence.

After contacting CU’s Mission Zero, which aims to help the “next generation of leaders to tackle our climate crisis,” two students from the class won funding to take their project to the next level and turn their creative projects into RTD bus ads.

At the top of page: RTD bus stops next to the CU �鶹ӰԺ campus with an advertisement featuring student-made sustainable fashion. Left: A student models green sustainable fashion in front of the Flatirons at Chautauqua Park. Right: The full design of an advertisement that landed on the side of an RTD in �鶹ӰԺ.

“Some students had their work selected for these advertisements on the buses, and each ad has QR codes that direct passengers to additional information on local thrift stores and sustainable fashion,” Osnes said.

“The project involved using sustainable materials to create clothing; we had students using recycled and thrifted fabrics, but also nontraditional materials like plastic bags,” Boykoff said.

“We then had students photograph themselves with their clothing and a full-body green suit underneath to create their final projects,” Osnes said.

In class, students used the “Power of Ten” framework, meaning that they were “tasked with reaching 10 people in their own circles of influence,” according to Osnes. This method focuses on “suitably scaling sustainability” by having students connect with their peers and other areas of their lives where they are “trusted communicators,” Osnes said.

“Our students ended up reaching 5,388 people, which stretched far beyond the original goal.”

Boykoff used the advertising project to partner with the city of �鶹ӰԺ and �鶹ӰԺ County, which led to the launch of a new and expanded campaign from November 2022 through February 2023. “I had recently taken classes in marketing and advertising, and Beth and I got really interested in the power of advertisement not just for selling things, but to promote engagement and action in climate change,” Boykoff said.

Discussing what climate communication means to them, Osnes and Boykoff noted that people can approach communication as storytelling. “We already have the facts, but we need to find ways to connect with people and tell the story of our planet and climate change,” Osnes said.

As a professor in CU’s Theatre and Dance Department also, Osnes says she believes these two subjects connect in meaningful ways: “Theater is always telling a story, and this is how we can approach climate messaging.”

Left:Beth Osnes is an associate professor of theatre at CU �鶹ӰԺ and is an associate of the environmental studies faculty. Right: Max Boykoff is a professor and the chair of the Environmental Studies Program and is adjunct faculty in the Department of Geography. Boykoff is also a fellow in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the �鶹ӰԺ.

Green Suits your Fashion was about more than just sustainability; it was about personalizing the movement and trying something new. “It gives students the chance to have fun and be creative, and it helps develop their technical skills and storytelling skills.” Boykoff said.

Creative Climate Communication is an undergraduate class focused on finding innovative solutions to communicate the facts and messages of climate change and is co-taught by Boykoff and Osnes.

“This semester, we focused on climate and comedy, where students use similar techniques to communicate these messages, and work with professional comedians to put on showcases for the community,” Boykoff said. The Climate Change Comedy live show is set for Friday, April 21.

Osnes and Boykoff hope to continue using the Green Suits your Fashion project to connect with the community, spread their message and have fun while doing it. “We hope to continue coming up with new innovations and creative ways to communicate sustainability in the classroom and in our community,” Osnes said.

Climate-communication class assignment was to ‘visually communicate sustainable fashion,’ and the effort got more response than anticipated.

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Not your parents' business course

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 22:12:14 +0000

Not your parents' business course Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/12/2023 - 16:12

Bradley Worrell

The Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability class focuses on using business innovations to address real-world needs

If tomorrow’s college graduates can successfully marry profit and purpose to address real-world problems, the sooner they can start the better.

That’s the premise behind the Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability (SSIR 1010) class for first-year students, part of the one-year Stories and Societies Residential Academic Program (RAP) at Sewall Hall on the �鶹ӰԺ campus.

At first blush, the class sounds a bit like a business course with a dash of social responsibility, but there is much more to it than that, according to Laura DeLuca, instructor for the course.

Mallory Fahey (in green hat and white sweater), the sustainability coordinator for the Patagonia store in �鶹ӰԺ, talks with students in the Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability class about the company’s commitment to environmental causes. She noted that Patagonia provided $220,000 in grant funding to 16 environmental groups in Colorado in 2022.

“Whereas Leeds (School of Business) has a bit more of a technical business focus, this class is more on the stories and human dimension—understanding the motivations of entrepreneurs and the issues they sought to address,” she says. “And then at the end of the course, students create a social innovation project solving a problem they care about. So students use lessons from real-life entrepreneurs to apply to their own projects.”

This course counts toward the arts and sciences certificate in social innovation run by Don Grant in the Sociology Department.

DeLuca says the course is appealing to students in part because of the “immersion learning” aspect of learning directly from entrepreneurs and hands-on activities, rather than rote academic teaching in a classroom. Additionally, the course is appealing to students because of the individualized attention they receive, thanks to the small class size, according to DeLuca. This semester’s class comprises 19 students, reflecting a roughly even number of men and women.

Students have taken field trips to several local businesses that operate at the intersection of innovation and social entrepeneurship, including the Patagonia store on Pearl Street.

A big part of the course, DeLuca says, is helping students to develop a problem-solving skills using an entrepreneurial mindset. Another important goal is to learn more about the “innovation and entrepreneurship” ecosystem on the campus and in the local community.

�鶹ӰԺ is an innovation hub

�鶹ӰԺ is fertile ground for businesses operating at the intersection of innovation and social entrepreneurship, DeLuca says, noting the community’s reputation as “the Silicon Valley for natural foods” as well as an adventure hub for exploring the great outdoors.

Students have been fortunate to be able to tap into that expertise, as many local entrepreneurs have been happy to share their stories during in-person visits to the classroom or on student field trips to businesses in the community, according to Deluca.

Recently, Pemba Sherpa, who immigrated from the mountain kingdom of Nepal to �鶹ӰԺ when he was just 19, shared his story with the class of founding Sherpa Chai Tea Co., Sherpa’s Adventure restaurant and Sherpa Ascent International, a climbing expedition business in Nepal.

After spending part of an afternoon learning about employee-owned Trident Booksellers & Café, students had the opportunity to enjoy a cold beverage on the company’s front patio.

Along the way, Pemba Sherpa has used his success in business to help his native village in remote, rural Nepal by funding the construction of a bridge to connect it to nearby communities and a hydroelectric plant to provide power. Next up is the construction of a medical clinic to serve his community.

A recent field trip featured a visit to the �鶹ӰԺ Patagonia store, an outdoor gear and clothing manufacturer and retailer that began as a humble, family-owned business in the 1970s but has since grown into a powerhouse in the outdoor market, with estimated yearly revenues of $1.5 billion.

The company also is widely recognized for annually pledging 1 percent of its sales for the preservation and restoration of the natural environment, which Patagonia says has netted $140 million in contributions to environmental causes to date.

Students toured Patagonia’s store and learned from its sustainability coordinator, Mallory Fahey, about the company’s commitment to “People, Planet, Profits.”

Not every organization that students are exposed to during the course have achieved the financial heights of Patagonia, but then success looks different to individual entrepreneurs, DeLuca says, pointing in example to the owners of Bobos Bakery, which makes sustainably sourced, gluten-free snack bars and pastries while supporting a variety of charities; Nude Foods Market, which runs a zero-waste grocery store; and Trident Booksellers and Café, a 40-plus-year-old business started by two local Buddhists that is an employee-owned company and which supports a variety of community activities. Students will take a field trip on April 11 to see Trident’s operations for themselves.

DeLuca says one of her goals with the class is to expose students to a diverse group of entrepreneurs, including women, people of color and others from different races, ages, ethnicities and backgrounds. She says she also attempts to expose students to business owners who are different stages in their careers and different ages, although most of them tend to be people who are in the 40s or 50s and are at a point in their lives where they are happy to share reflections on their lives and careers.

For example, David Secunda, founder of Advid4Adventure, shared his story of launching an outdoor adventure company for youth. Avid4Adventure offers day and overnight summer camps in California, Colorado, and Oregon that reconnect kids with the natural world. Another outdoor innovator, Lisa Smith of Women’s Wilderness, shared her story of leading women of color on outdoor adventures in Colorado through the Trailblazer program.

DeLuca also includes younger innovators, such as Rob Dodge, water quality specialist and logistics specialist for Epic Water filters, as well as Sophie Skogaard and her partner, Howard Gibbs-Hobgood, who make flavorful raw vegan desserts and meals. These 20-something entrepreneurs are recent CU-�鶹ӰԺ grads who are easier for students to relate to in terms of life stage, given that they are only four or five years older than them.

Asking thoughtful, ‘hard questions’

While students are respectful, DeLuca says she encourages them to ask the entrepreneurs thoughtful, “hard questions” about their business practices regarding sustainability and to share their failures as well as successes. Students are expected to do a bit of research on the companies and their founders in advance of meetings so they can ask thoughtful questions, she notes.

Laura DeLuca, the instructor for the Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability class for first-year students, says that one of her goals with the class is to expose students to a diverse group of entrepreneurs, including women, people of color and others from different races, ages, ethnicities and backgrounds.

DeLuca describes the interactions between students and entrepreneurs as a “win-win,” noting that business owners sometimes get ideas on how to improve or expand upon their operations in speaking with students.

For their part, the first-year students who take the class gain an appreciation of the local business community that they might not otherwise see, she says, noting students tend to spend most of their time on the campus.

After meeting with entrepreneurs, students are tasked with writing one- or two-page reflection papers where they are expected to offer their assessments of the business’s operation, share any “aha moment” takeaways and offer any possible thoughts they had about the presentation.

For the final class assignment, students will present a social-innovation plan that’s designed to address a need that they see on a topic that is important to them. For example, Lily Patrick is working on an initiative she calls “Unforgotten,” which would collect and share the stories of senior citizens at nursing homes, so the stories of their lives are not forgotten; Camden Horner is working on a venture plan to fund performing arts education in Colorado public schools; and Tony Puthuff is working on an initiative to address the high cost of mental health counseling.

Summing up the class, DeLuca says, “The students gain fluency not only in researching and writing, but also come away with an appreciation for what it takes to create, organize and manage an enterprise to achieve social change.”

The Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability class focuses on using business innovations to address real-world needs.

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Scientists win $4 million for efficient battery development

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Oct 2021 16:21:03 +0000

Scientists win $4 million for efficient battery development Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/25/2021 - 10:21

Sarah Kuta

The DOE award will help accelerate research into flow batteries, which will help make the electricity grid more reliable and sustainable

The electrical grid typically runs smoothly and without incident, working in the background to provide essential power to homes, businesses and cities. But when the grid doesn’t function properly or shuts down because of severe weather, like what happened in Texas earlier this year, this failure can have catastrophic consequences.

A new flow battery developed at the �鶹ӰԺ has the potential to help solve some of the grid’s reliability challenges while at the same time bolstering the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

Michael Marshak

To help accelerate this technology, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Manufacturing Office is awarding $4.14 million to Otoro Energy, a company started by CU �鶹ӰԺ researcher Michael Marshak based on technology developed in his lab at Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI) and patented with help from Venture Partners. The three-year grant also includes funding to Marshak’s lab, with some earmarked to help support student researchers from underrepresented groups under the SMART Program.

The grant is part of $17.9 million recently awarded by the energy department to help reach President Joe Biden’s goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050; three other companies specializing in flow battery technologies also received funding: Largo Clean Energy, TreadStone Technologies Inc. and Quino Energy, Inc.

“We’ve become so reliant on electricity that it’s really a life-or-death thing, and reliability is incredibly critical,” said Marshak, a CU �鶹ӰԺ assistant professor of chemistry and fellow at RASEI. “There are so many different critical things that all require electricity and when it goes out, society can fall apart.”

Since 2018, Marshak and his collaborators have been working to develop a new, low-cost flow battery technology that can store large amounts of energy for long periods of time on the electrical grid.

A flow battery differs from other types of batteries in that it stores energy in liquids, which are then pumped into fuel cells during charging and discharging to convert between electrical and chemical energy.

Marshak’s battery technology uses water, organic chelating agents (compounds that help bind metal ions together and make them water-soluble), iron and chromium to store energy that can be used later, a helpful innovation for harnessing the power of fluctuating sources like wind and solar.

“We need to be able to provide energy when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing,” Marshak said.

So far, most of Marshak’s batteries have been relatively small—about the size of a deck of cards. But in order to be useful for powering small businesses or, ideally, entire communities, his team needs to build batteries that are roughly the size of small shipping containers. The grant funding will help make that size increase a reality, Marshak said.

The goal is to build a five-kilowatt system that’s grid-tied and operates continuously, potentially for one or two decades nonstop."

“The goal is to build a five-kilowatt system that’s grid-tied and operates continuously, potentially for one or two decades nonstop,” he said. “We want to build something that we can bring or demonstrate to various customers and really take the technology to the next stage so we can go from five kilowatts to 500 kilowatts and ultimately toward megawatt and beyond scale systems.”

Marshak patented his technology in 2019 with help from Venture Partners, the CU �鶹ӰԺ department that helps transform university-led research into new businesses, products, services and partnerships. Venture Partners’ entrepreneurship programs, lectures and coaching sessions also helped Marshak found his startup, Otoro Energy, in September 2020.

Marshak is partnering with Massachusetts-based Raytheon Technologies, which will also receive some of the energy department funding, to validate and test the new technology.

“It’s a really neat opportunity to bring together a university invention, a small business and a large business to tackle a really important problem,” he said.

Marshak’s technology helps solve some of the challenges associated with using other types of batteries to store energy on the grid. For starters, his batteries are safer than lithium-ion batteries, which can overheat and start fires. The technology also uses cheap, readily available, non-toxic materials that can be produced domestically.

They’re also more affordable and easier to scale than other battery types.

“The advantage of flow batteries is that the amount of energy stored scales with the volume of the liquids rather than the other fuel cell components, which provides a huge cost advantage for long-duration energy storage,” Marshak said. “The marginal cost of increasing battery capacity is the cost of the liquids, rather than any of the expensive electrical components.”

Above all else, the technology makes it possible to smooth out some of the differences between supply and demand on the electrical grid. Demand for electricity varies throughout the day and across the different seasons, and that doesn’t always match up with times when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.

That mismatch means the grid must continue to rely on traditional fossil fuel-powered plants, which can provide a constant stream of electricity to homes and businesses around the clock. Being able to store energy from renewable sources is the key to reducing reliance on coal and natural gas.

Storing energy in batteries is also useful for preventing grid failures or interruptions caused by issues like severe weather or natural disasters, Marshak said.

“These batteries are going to be the critical infrastructure that supports grid reliability and resilience, but also allow for a future where we can get to 80, 90 or even 100 percent renewable energy,” he said. “In order to get anywhere close to that, we’re going to need to have energy storage, and this is the technology that’s going to do it.”

The DOE award will help accelerate research into flow batteries, which will help make the electricity grid more reliable and sustainable.

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